Why is UNC Chapel-Hill (allegedly) very difficult to get into OOS?

Title. I am not applying to UNC, but I constantly hear prospective students ranting about how difficult it is for OOS students to be admitted, even if they have well above-average applications. Granted, some of this comes from kids I’ve met at the UNC-CH Model UN conference who are from Chapel Hill and might have a tendency to exaggerate UNC’s quality. With that said, I’ve heard the same spiel from out of state students who appear to be more than qualified but are certain that they won’t get in.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that UNC is a good school that offers a quality education. But is it truly as hard for OOS as it is made out to be? If so, what evidence is there to support that?

Cheers

States often have specific laws that cap the amount of out of state students or specify the percentage that must be in state students. Hence, there are fewer slots for the out of state students and the competition is more fierce.

@futbolista
UNC OOS acceptance rate is 14% which is very low in my opinion. However take into consideration that UNC’s stats are lower than their peers (28-33). Although OOS students would be near the high end of the spectrum.

Because there are a limited number of spots for OOS students. UNC is highly ranked and gives good financial aid, so is attractive to OOS. It also has a number of top sports teams and uses some of those OOS spots for athletes.

UNC-CH admits OOS applicants in numbers that are calculated not to exceed 18% of an entering freshman class. See “Undergraduate Admissions” on Page 2, here: http://www.admissions.unc.edu/files/2013/09/Admissions__Policy.pdf. The numbers of OOS applicants far outweigh the number of places that are available with the 18% cap; that is why you have low acceptance rates. Thus, the entering Class of 2021 at UNC-CH had a 14% acceptance rate for OOS applicants: http://admissions.unc.edu/apply/class-profile-2/.

The year that my OOS daughter applied, there were 25,000 OOS applicants and about 10,000 instate applicants. Add to this what is stated above: … UNC-CH admits OOS applicants in numbers that are calculated not to exceed 18% of an entering freshman class… and you will understand why it’s hard to get in from OOS.

The OOS students tend to be at or above the 75%… with some exceptions of course.

I believe that it is state law that limits OOS students to 18%. UNC is state funded and their primary mission is to educate NC residents.

Additionally, the university has been penalized financially for exceeding the 18% OOS threshhold. For example, here:

https://alumni.unc.edu/news/fine-okd-after-carolina-exceeds-admissions-cap-for-second-straight-year/.

Very good public university plus math = low number of out of state students, driven by 18% OOS first year cap.
For the incoming fall 2017 class of 4,355, there were almost 41K applicants.
There were about 28,000 out of state applicants vying for approximately 800 slots (<3% of OOS Students Applying)
With that in mind UNC can be quite selective on offering admissions to out of state students (about 4,000 offers) and in turn, those students have MANY options to go elite schools so only about 20% enroll.

Many other top public schools offer much higher OOS admissions:

  • UC Berkeley = 31%
  • UVA = 34%
  • U Michigan = 45%

UNC offers excellent FA to OOS students…in our situation it was much better than others.

@smack28752 U Michigan OOS admission rate is not 45% I believe its under 29%?

@friday28 - You are correct. The figures above are student body enrollment not admissions rates for out of state students. Overall, even with transfers and upperclassmen, Chapel Hill appears to have less than 20% OOS. There are a number of recent articles that address the trend of public universities expanding their out of state population percentages, often to boost revenue. North Carolina seems resolute in maintaining the current ratio in order to service in state residents.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2016-06-13/out-of-state-enrollment-rises-at-state-flagship-universities

If you include transfer students, 25% of students from UNC come from OOS.

Undergraduate totals, including transfers, remains at 82%/18% split of the 18,862 students enrolled in the fall of 2017 according to the UNC Office of Institutional Research & Assessment.

When considering graduate and professional students (totaling 29,911) the split is 72.5% in state to 27.5% OOS

See Analytic Reports/Enrollment/Enrollment by Residence
https://oira.unc.edu/reports/

1 Like

The 18% law applies to incoming freshmen and not to transfer students. There are years where the undergraduate OOS population is higher than 18%… due to transfer students. Regardless, UNC still has a much lower undergraduate OOS population than the schools mentioned above.

@twogirls you are correct but the total stays under 20%. Looking at the last 10 years of data presented, the average OOS ungraduate population was 18.7% with the highest year at 19.5% in that time frame (sorry, I have a problem letting things go!)…

1 Like

I do too… unfortunately!

We were told for a certain year… could have been 2 years ago … I don’t remember… that the OOS total was 25% if you factor in transfers. In any event… it doesn’t matter … as I recognize that there is an 18% legal cap and our source on campus could have been wrong with the data.